This is my first question on here so if it is not correct then please comment.

my number has five
the one before me has eight
which my next has nine

but my cousin made of ten
over a lap of home


What is my number?

Hint #1

Think of home on a global scale

Hint #2

as people are struggling i will give an alternative to the last line
over an orbit of earth

I may have made this abit ambiguous so i will add another two verses

uinal of the mayan
the alphabet of the bard
next is on a die

last the number K
for my next look to SC
i am at CA

As Requested

My number has five being 1110010000100 which is 7300 in binary i.e. 5 zeros
second line is 1101100010111 which is 6935 in binary
third line is 1110111110001 which is 7665 in binary

fourth and fifth lines is the relationship between base 10 and base 2 i.e. dec and binary
and the sixth line means over a lap of the earth i.e. an orbit of earth 365 days

Apologies if it was confusing ... it sounded right in my head.

• What does the phrase "over a lap" mean? – Jacob Alvarez May 12 '16 at 16:52
• I found this on the wall.... 867-5309? – liebs19 May 12 '16 at 17:09
• it looks like you were trying to make haiku, but "over a lap of home" and "uinal of the mayan" both have too many syllables. – Bulldogg6404 May 14 '16 at 1:05
• Would you mind explaining the first part of the puzzle? – gannolloy May 17 '16 at 15:44
• @gannolloy that has been done – Secret Squirrel May 18 '16 at 7:21

New guess based on hints

Twenty

my number has five

Not sure

the one before me has eight which my next has nine

Don't know, letters would work if the first clue was 6 and not 5

Twenty in binary is 10100?

but my cousin made of ten

Decimal form is 20 (Obviously) or using the digits its 10,100

over a lap of home

Something to do with orbiting earth, not sure. Orbiting earth takes about 90 minutes, can happen 15-16 times a day (less than 20?)

uinal of the mayan

Mayan calendar has 19 months or uinals

the alphabet of the bard

Bard's Alphabet has 20 runes

next is on a die

20-sided die, or 2 and 1 are next to each other on a 6-sided die (21)

last the number K

Potassium has the atomic number 19

for my next look to SC

Scandium = 21

i am at CA

Calcium is 20

• Agreed, it seems he is basically saying "The number is twenty, now tell me why." The first haiku still doesn't make sense in any context other than seven-segment display (too many bit changes to be related to binary), and thus only seems to work with 17, so I don't know where else to go from here. – Bulldogg6404 May 14 '16 at 2:22
• @Bulldogg6404 A comment that OP made on an earlier answer makes me think it has to do with binary – gannolloy May 14 '16 at 6:18
• "I am made of two, but my cousin made of ten" - 20 is 2 times 10 (2 times the base in decimal), and 10 times 2 (10 times the base in binary) - i.e. made of 2 "10s" or 10 "2s" – trolley813 May 14 '16 at 9:55
• @hyst329 that makes sense but how does it help with the over an orbit of earth thing – gannolloy May 14 '16 at 14:53
• Two tens and ten twos isn't clarified in the second haiku - there is nothing to indicate what base we should be considering. – Bulldogg6404 May 14 '16 at 19:58

17

my number has five

On a 7 segment display, 17 uses 5 segments, like so

   _
|  |
|  |

the one before me has eight

Accordingly, 16 uses 8 segments

   _
||_
||_|

which my next has nine

9 segments has 18:

    _
| |_|
| |_|

17 is made of 2 digits

but my cousin made of ten / over a lap of home

?

• Sounds like it's related to binary / decimal, purely because of the "made of 2/made of 10" comments – Callum Bradbury May 12 '16 at 11:28
• So 17=2^4+1 and its cousin made of ten might be 10001=10^4+1. Perhaps the "lap of home" is a 10k race or something? (But one doesn't normally do multiple 10k laps, so far as I know, and I don't understand why "of home", so this is probably wrong.) – Gareth McCaughan May 12 '16 at 12:16
• 7 segment display is like the one on the score boards? – Juan Carlos Oropeza May 12 '16 at 14:10
• Yeah. I wrote the answer on mobile. I'm currently trying to get an example in my answer, but monospace blocks don't play well with spoiler tags. – Matt May 12 '16 at 14:17
• Ooh, 17 is a "cousin prime" with 13. That might be of use. – Darrel Hoffman May 12 '16 at 21:45

Not quite sure but are you

50 (counting from 100 to 0) {60 would work too, as there are two answers}

my number has five

fifty (5 characters)

the one before me has eight

51 (fiftyone - 8 characters)

which my next has nine

49 (fortynine - 9 characters)

50 is made of two digits

but my cousin made of ten

50 is in the tens of decimal numbers

over a lap of home

This I don't understand really. but I think this means that it's counting down and 0 is 'home'

• This also works for 60. Maybe that's the second answer? – Matt May 12 '16 at 13:53
• This relies on counting backwards, which doesn't seem to be indicated anywhere in the riddle. – Gareth McCaughan May 12 '16 at 14:11
• @Matt yes indeed – Lowwy May 12 '16 at 14:56
• @GarethMcCaughan True but maybe that could be the clue for "Over a lap of home" home being 0. but I am not sure of that – Lowwy May 12 '16 at 14:57
• Why aren't 20 and 30 equally valid? – Gareth McCaughan May 12 '16 at 15:00

995089

my number has five, the one before me has eight, which my next has nine

Number 995089 has the digit 5 (as one of its digits), 995088 has the digit 8, 995090 has digit 9

995089 has 2 prime factors: 995089=241*4129, but the "cousin" 995085 (analogy with "cousin primes" - difference by 4) has 10 factors: 995085=3^7*5*7*13

over a lap of home

On the number keyboard, 5, 8 and 9 keys(the digits which this number is composed of) are near the 7 key, aka "Home"